


A King & His Heart

by ghostlypng



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A Single Mention of Matt Holt, M/M, Romance, Royalty AU, kingdom au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 06:13:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostlypng/pseuds/ghostlypng
Summary: Shiro confesses his love with a kiss, Keith jumps through hoops so that he can do the same.





	A King & His Heart

“A soldier?!?” Kolivan’s words came as a cry of outrage.

“A decorated veteran of the highest paladin rank and nobleman in his own right.” Keith counters.

“Your highness,” Thace paused, rubbing at behind his ear in a tell that Keith knew too well. “With all respects, I did not protect and raise you so that you could follow in your beloved father’s footsteps.”

“Which footsteps?” Keith crossed his arms, now pretending to seethe. “Marrying for love? Or is it that you fear I shall follow him by descending into madness after loss? You claim that you raised me? Have you done so poorly a job then Lord Thace?”

No one spoke for a moment and Akira Keith Kogane, ruling monarch of the Marmoran Isles, was certain he had gotten his way.

Often, yet never to his face, others called him The Impulsive Prince. A result of the capricious nature he carried in his heart. A heart that had always loved but had grown to be in love with a certain man so named Takashi Shirogane. Now, with the forced approval of his inner circle of advisors and pseudo family, Keith merely needed to propose.

Though Keith knew he would not find him there, he headed for the small library with East facing windows that Shiro enjoyed most for the view it gave of morning sun. Flopping down into a cushioned couch Keith considered as “theirs”, the sound of giggling reaches his ears.

“What do you want Lotor.” He calls, voice muffled by fabric.

“Ah,” His cousin, exiled Prince of the Galran Empire, tuts at him. “I believe I was here before you, your highness.” Keith knows well that Lotor is teasing him yet he rises to the bait.

“Entertaining more of your lady friends is it?” He turns so that his eyes are on Lotor’s face.

“Dearest cousin.” Keith rolls his eyes at that. “I do not believe it is ladies that you seek, is it. I suppose the council did not approve?”

Keith grunts in affirmation.

“Well, there is always the option of running away. It’s worked quite well for me.” Lotor’s smile glints like a polished blade and induces another eye roll from Keith.

“I suppose that living out of my treasury is quite convenient for you. Unfortunate for me that I do not have a cousin to support an endlessly lavish lifestyle.” Lotor’s smile turns a bit sharper but he remains amiable, too familiar with Keith’s moods to grow irritated quite yet.

“There is always the Altean Kingdom. I am sure dear Princess Allura would happily accommodate you. Though I do believe she is much tighter with her purse strings.” It takes a moment of Keith blinking at Lotor before they both burst into laughter. Despite his reputation of philanderer for the group of women he often keeps, Keith knows his cousin to prefer the company of men.

Keith rolls so that he is resting on his back. “She is generous to her people yet quite firm in her beliefs.”

“Indeed.”

“And I am born from a woman of the people she loathes..”

“You speak as if you wish truly to run away.”

“No!” Keith sits up in an instant. “It is just that I..”

“You?” Lotor leans back in his seat, waiting for Keith to continue.

“I should like to have her approval..”

“Ah.” Keith thinks of many daggers as he watches his cousin’s mouth curl into a grin. “So this is why you came to this room rather than stomping off to your chambers. Were you hoping to find him here? Your beloved Shirogane?” Lotor teases him.

“I’d be a fool to hope for such a thing.”

“Hm. Yes well, it is two days past since his departure isn’t it.”

“Yes.”

Two days had gone since the morning Shiro had begun the journey home to his own lands in the neighboring kingdom, Altea.

It was a day's ride by boat followed by two days travelling along roadside to reach the Shirogane manor. Not that Keith knew by experience but rather the recollection he had forced Shiro to tell again and again in their youth. Shiro’s leaving had seemed sudden and unexpected to all but Keith.

Keith buries his head into his hands and groans again, embarrassed and displeased.

“What do you do?” Lotor asks, now genuinely interested in satisfying his curiosity.

“I did nothing!” Keith snaps.

That was truthfully the problem. The day had started off well, the temperature comfortable enough that Keith was able to dine in the gardens for lunch. He’d been in smiles all day and well into the evening until Shiro had pulled him aside, kissed him senseless and then confessed to be in love with him.

Keith had taken it not so well as Shiro had hoped, he was sure. His hand still tingles when he thinks of the light slap he had instinctually delivered to Shiro’s cheek. He felt terrible for it from even before the moment his palm made contact with cheek and was still carrying the feeling of embarrassment and shame. Still he had not stopped Shiro from leaving him standing alone in a corner of the vibrant greenhouse with red cheeks and swollen lips. By the time Keith rose the next morning after pacing circles well into the night, Shiro had already gone.

“I do not find that an easy thing to believe.” Lotor comments flippantly,

“It is true. I should have gone to him after his.. Admission..” He puts it lightly.

“He would understand.” Lotor rises to his feet, beckoning his guards to follow. “Should you explain it to him.” Lotor knows well how stubborn Keith can be.

“Lotor.” Keith’s voice comes a touch high and choked as if he may be about to cry. “I cannot just leave and go to him.”

“Then write to him, Keith really? Am I to do all your scheming for you?” Lotor masks his discomfort with teasing and breezes from the room with a wave, footsteps echoing down the hall as he makes an escape.

“Write him.” Keith repeats the words with disdain. “As if I could not think of a solution so simple and uninspired.” He rolls around, restless with frustration for a time before giving up and heading elsewhere.

His feet step no heavier than usual but his heart feels as if it’s crushed under hundreds of pounds of weight. The pressures of duty and honor threatening to flatten.

Keith finds his burdened soul and earthly body coming to a stop at the palace shrines. Candles and incense burn slow at the altars. Keith keeps his eyes to the ground, avoiding any close look at those who are prayer, and finds a cushion for himself to kneel on.

He choses one that is clearly front and favoring the Marmoran god, a deity of war but more than that a deity of knowledge and selflessness. A god who requires those who would worship and follow them to do so with self sacrifice and without pride. If his cushion happens to slightly rest on the side in which the altar for the Altean’s deity is set, Keith would claim it to be merely by chance.

_Please.._ Keith thinks to not any god but only himself, hands curled tight into fists. _Let him return to me. And please, don’t let me.._ A sound to his left derails Keith’s thoughts.

“Pst.”

Keith’s eyes and brow wrinkle, pressing tighter as if to shut out the noise.

“PSST. Princey.”

Keith’s eyes open just enough to give him view of who is so adamant on infringing onto his moment of solitude. His eyes meet a set that seem so dark of a blue in the dim lightly and immediately rises to his feet to leave.

“Pst! Hey, wait!”

Voices murmur and shush the two as Keith walks from the room while the other man follows.

“Now just you hold on a minute!”

“I’d much rather not Lance, I came for a moment of peace. Not to be pestered by those who would question my every judgement.”

“It’s not like that!” Lance protests.

Keith scoffs and finds himself rolling his eyes for what felt like the hundredth time in an hour. “Then what is it like?”

“We just want to know why you did it! We’re worried about you. We have been since two days ago.” They turn a corner, Lance having caught up enough to match Keith’s shorter steps. “Just tell me why Keith. Why did you send him away!”

It’s the final stone weight that tips the scale, cracking the mask Keith hides behind.

“I did not send him away Lance! He left!” Keith holds Lance by two fistfuls of his Altean dress robes. “I did nothing and he left.”

Stunned, Lance stands still and silent. Not even tussling to get free of Keith’s hold as he would have at most other times. It doesn’t matter though as Keith is quick to let go and slip away, leaving Lance standing alone and still grasping for the right words to say.

It is Kolivan who finds him next, hiding on narrow beams in the aviary and ruining his clothes.

“Thinking of writing to him will not make a letter appear in his hand Keith.”

Keith shifts so that he’s able to sit, upsetting the few birds who have been using his legs to rest. “Kolivan.” He greets the other, surprise in his voice not completely hidden.

“Shirogane is a fine man. He would make a strong husband and consort.”

“But?” Keith asks, watching Kolivan effortlessly make his way over to sit with Keith on his beam.

“No, I was hasty to speak this morning. Shirogane has proven himself time and again to be a formidable leader. More than that, I know that you care for him. I suppose that is the part which worries me most.”

For a moment, titles and duty fall away leaving Kolivan and Keith speaking nearly as parent and child, rather than advisor and monarch. Keith finds himself leaning just so slightly into Kolivan, reminiscent of when he was a child and clinging to Thace or Kolivan after a nightmare. He almost believes he can see Kolivan’s mouth turning up at the corners, though he isn’t looking at Keith.

“If what you wish is to be joined with that man in such a union I will give my blessing.”

“..Thank you.” Keith doesn’t wait, climbing to his feet in haste. His weight shifting in impatience as Kolivan takes his time standing and leading them back from beam to walkway.

“Your highness!” Keith hears Kolivan calling out to him from behind. “Please wash the smell of feathers from your hair and change first.” Keith only answers with a laugh.

The letter finds itself in Shiro’s possession nearly a week later. The feeling of rejection still wrapped around his heart. Similar to barbed tendrils of wild blackberry bushes like which grow along the top of his favorite hill.

He waits until after dinner and his guests long having gone to bed to inspect the envelope. Wood crackles in the fireplace of his bedchamber, it’s warmth and glow putting Shiro into a easy mood.

A weight holds it to the table as Shiro slides a dull knife under the envelope flap, careful to open it.

_“Shiro,_   
_Perhaps I should have written this as soon as you had left but truthfully I did not how or what I should say. Now I know the truth. I have never wanted anything so much as when I wanted you in that moment of when you kissed me in the indoor gardens._   
_In your absence I have done something presumptuous and sought the approval of my advisors in order so that we may join in union should you say yes. Would you do me the honor of becoming my husband?_   
_Faithfully yours._   
_His Highness, Akira Keith Kogane”_

Holding the letter clutched still in his one flesh hand, Shiro leaps to his feet.

“Matt! Matt!” Shiro calls to his best friend, waking his whole household in the process.

Word of Shiro’s arrival reaches the Marmoran palace before the man himself does, leaving opportunity for Keith to be waiting eagerly for him as far down the entry path as he is allowed, Thace standing at a close distance.

Shiro is holding the letter in his same hand when he approaches Keith immediately upon arriving. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, Keith, I accept.” Shiro laughs, catching Keith as he jumps into his arms and spinning as he holds Keith in them. “It has been you who has saved me so many times I felt myself at the brink.”

Keith holds tight, wishing in that moment that Shiro should never need to set him down. “And for my future husband I will continue, as may times as it may take.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a quick something for fun while I work on my other fics.   
> Kudos & comment if you can. Thanks!


End file.
